On the quadratic character of quadratic units

DOI10.1016/J.JNT.2007.07.009MaRDI QIDQ2483166zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 28 April 2008

Published in Journal of Number Theory (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnt.2007.07.009

congruence fundamental unit Jacobi symbol Lucas sequence quadratic residue

Congruences; primitive roots; residue systems (11A07) Power residues, reciprocity (11A15) Fibonacci and Lucas numbers and polynomials and generalizations (11B39) General binary quadratic forms (11E16) Sums of squares and representations by other particular quadratic forms (11E25)

Review text

Let \(d>1\) be a squarefree integer and \(\varepsilon_d\) be the fundamental unit of the quadratic field \(\mathbb Q(\sqrt{d})\). Suppose that \(p\equiv 1\pmod 4\) is a prime such that \((d/p)=1\) (the Legendre symbol). Many mathematicians tried to characterize primes of this form such that \(\varepsilon_d\) is a quadratic residue modulo \(p\). For example, the author did so in [J. Number Theory 113, 10--52 (2005; Zbl 1101.11003)]. Here the author considers more generally the value of \(((b+\sqrt{a^2+b^2})/2)^{(p-1)/2}\pmod p\) in case \(p\equiv 1\pmod 4\) and \(p\) does not divide \(a(a^2+b^2)\) and further assuming that \(p\) is represented by a certain quadratic form. As an application he obtains simple criteria for \(\varepsilon_d\) to be a quadratic residue modulo \(p\). He also establishes congruences for \(U_{(p\pm 1)/2}\pmod p\) and obtains a criterion for \(U_{(p-1)/4}\) to be divisible by \(p\), where \(U_0,U_1,U_2,\ldots\) is the Lucas sequence defined by \(U_0=0\), \(U_1=1\) and, for \(n\geq 1\), by \(U_{n+1}=bU_n+k^2U_{n-1}\). The proofs are of a highly computational nature.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(17)

This page was built for publication: On the quadratic character of quadratic units

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2483166)